(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Justice Minister Omar Azziman, RSF protested the sentencing on appeal of Aboubakr Jamai and Ali Amar, managing editor and managing director of “Journal hebdomadaire”, respectively, to suspended prison sentences. The organisation asked the minister to “use all his influence to have the decision overturned by the Supreme Court.” According […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Justice Minister Omar Azziman, RSF protested the sentencing on appeal of Aboubakr Jamai and Ali Amar, managing editor and managing director of “Journal hebdomadaire”, respectively, to suspended prison sentences. The organisation asked the minister to “use all his influence to have the decision overturned by the Supreme Court.”
According to information obtained by RSF, on 14 February 2002, the Casablanca Court of Appeal sentenced Jamai and Amar to suspended prison sentences of three and two months, respectively. They were also ordered to pay 500,000 dirhams (approximately US$42,700; 50,000 euros) in damages and a fine of 10,000 dirhams (approximately US$850; 1,000 euros). Amar told RSF that he and his colleague would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
On 1 March 2001, the Ain Chok District Court in Casablanca ordered Jamai and Amar to pay 2,000,000 dirhams (approx. US$170,000; 200,000 euros) in damages and a fine of 10,000 dirhams. The two editors were also sentenced to three and two months’ imprisonment, respectively. They were taken to court by Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa following the publication of a report in issues 117, 118 and 119 of “Le Journal” (banned on 2 December 2000), which accused the minister of misappropriating public funds when he was ambassador to the United States. The newspaper’s management appealed the decision.
On 2 December 2000, Culture and Communications Minister Mohamed Achaâri announced he was “definitively banning publication [of the] three weeklies” “Le Journal”, “Assahifa” and “Demain” because they “threatened the state’s stability.” On 25 November and 1 December 2000, respectively, “Le Journal” and “Assahifa” published a letter credited to former opposition leader Mohamed Basri, which stated that the Moroccan Left was involved in the attempted coup d’état against King Hassan II in 1972, and directly implicated Abderrahmane Youssoufi, the current prime minister and president of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP – a leftist party). Achaâri explained that the government’s decision, “complied with protection of the nation’s interests and the sacred nature of its institutions” (see IFEX alerts of 11 January 2001 and 4 December 2000).
